Inflammatory bowel diseases include intractable inflammatory diseases of large and small intestines which are caused by various nosogenesis, for example, ulcerative colitis which is a cryptogenic diffuse non-specific inflammation wherein mucosa on the large intestine is mainly invaded and erosion and ulcer are formed, or Crohn's disease which is a cryptogenic non-specific granulomatous inflammatory disease accompanied by fibrosis or ulcer. In addition, the lesion of the intestine in Behçet's disease which is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease is also included.
The nosogenesis of ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, or Behçet's disease has not been clarified yet, but their immunological mechanisms have recently attracted a lot of attentions. In the medication of these inflammatory bowel diseases, immunosupressants, steroids, salazosulfapyridine, etc. have been used, but they cannot exhibit sufficient effects in certain patients. Besides, they should be improved with respect to side effects, and under these circumstances, it has been desired to develop a medicament being more effective and having a high safety.
On the other hand, sulfodehydroabietic acid or a salt thereof has been known to exhibit an inhibitory activity of acid secretion or pepsin secretion, etc., and to be useful as an agent for prophylaxis or treatment of peptic ulcer (gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer) or gastritis (JP-A-58-77814, JP-A-63-165361, JP-A-2-167258). It is considered that peptic ulcer (gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer) or gastritis and inflammatory bowel diseases are different in not only their lesion regions, but also their nosogenesis is quite different. In the nosogenesis of peptic ulcer such as gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer, the digestion by gastric juice cannot be left out of consideration. In the medication of these diseases, a medicament exhibiting an inhibitory activity of acid secretion such as a histamine H2 receptor antagonist or a proton pump inhibitor is mainly used in the medication of peptic ulcer and gastritis. On the other hand, an immunosupressant, a steroid, a salazosulfapyridine, etc. is mainly employed in the medication of inflammatory bowel diseases, which is quite different from the medication of peptic ulcer or gastritis.
It has not been known at all that sulfodehydroabietic acid or a salt thereof is useful in the prophylaxis or treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases.